Monday, 28 September 2015

Right, remember the way I’m listing my
favourites reads as the year goes on..? Every three months I’ll post a Top Ten
for that quarter – and then at the end of the year I’ll pick an ultimate Top
Ten for 2015. That’s the plan, anyhow!

Summer has been a strange time for reading.
I feel like I’ve spent much less time reading than usual, and more time
rereading old things than new. But at the same time I’ve still made some lovely
new discoveries… I think it’s fair to say I’ve been choosing more carefully,
perhaps, and having a higher hit rate of finding books I love.

Here goes:

MURDER IN MIDWINTER by Lesley Cookman. I’m
so far behind with the Libby Sarjeant series but, as with any murdery series,
that’s a good thing – because they’re always still there waiting for me, and
it’s like taking a little holiday with friends when I go back. I love her
gaggle of characters – and it’s always best when they’re altogether and chewing
over a new and improbable mystery. This one has some surprising and vivid
flashbacks to an Edwardian-era theatrical mystery, and is all the richer for
it. As with any whodunnits, it’s not so much the solving and the resolution
that keeps me enthralled – it’s watching the somewhat larger-than-life
characters jostle along, bickering and sleuthing as they go. This time I almost guessed the
solution, which amazed me.

THE HOUSE IN NORHAM GARDENS by Penelope
Lively. It was a rainy summer day when I picked up one of the P. Lively’s that
last year’s marathon somehow left out. This was a darker one, a spookier and
more adult one. There’s more ambiguity and oddness in this tale of the old
house, the old ladies and their oddments and bric-a-brac, lodgers and secrets.
It reminded me very strongly of Angela Carter’s 1960s novels, ‘Several
Perceptions’ especially – and also of the stories Shena Mackay published in the
1960s. The atmosphere is so thick and mysterious. I know this is one I’ll have
to return to. I wish kids’ books were still as open-ended and strange and
disturbing as I found this.

THE SUMMER OF SECRETS by Sarah Jasmon. An
ex-student of mine from several years ago at MMU – I remember Sarah’s
evocative, nostalgic writing very strongly from the time. I was chuffed to be
sent a copy of her first novel, and found it very strong and atmospheric. It
had the not-always-comfortable hot and humid vibe of long-ago summers. I liked
the clash of cultures and the peeling away of mythology and memories as our
lead character gradually comes to realise the secret of what went on back in
the early Eighties. We slip back into the past along with her, and the
revelations are worth waiting for.

Oh, I’m writing too much about all of
these! It’s meant to be a list..!

CINNAMON TOAST AND THE END OF THE WORLD by
Janet E Cameron. There’s been lots of stuff written and said this year about
Gay and Lesbian YA lit (a lot of it – ridiculously – as if the category had
just been recently invented…) This novel is worthy of everyone’s attention.
It’s a wonderful romance in which the writer just absolutely gets her
main character and his feelings about the boy he has fallen for. It’s a great
book. It reads like a dream. I believed in absolutely everybody in it.

THE MURDSTONE TRILOGY by Mal Peet. This was
my holiday book. I took many on holiday with me, and spent the whole week reading
this one alone. It is a brilliantly savage satire on not only Children’s and
Fantasy publishing today, but also the whole genre of Epic Fantasy. Our hero
makes a pact with the devil (his agent) and a hideous transdimensional implike
creature in order to win fame and colossal success in writing a trilogy of
novels in a genre he personally can’t stand. Riches beyond his dreams soon
arrive and he’s reluctantly tied into writing books two and three… and pretty
soon realizes that the whole thing isn’t as made-up and improbable as it first
seemed. Oh, I won’t explain anymore. It’s scabrous, nasty, hilarious. What a
film it will make. Another novel – along with two or three others from this
quarter – destined for my Treasured Re-Reads Shelf.

MYSTERY IN WHITE by J. Jefferson Farjeon.
My pal Wayne is a bookseller on Deansgate and he reckons it was him putting
this out on a special display by itself prior to Christmas that got everyone
interested in this obscure crime reprint. It’s a book that certainly deserved
its belated success. It’s exactly my kind of thing – trains and snowed-in
houses. Ruffians who seem guilty as soon as you look at them. Mysterious and
brilliant older gentlemen. Sexy and slightly daft young hero. Sassy young
ladies. Murders and secrets and, again, the resolutions and reasons seem almost
beside the point what with all the Christmassy carryings on.

WILD STRAWBERRIES by Angela Thirkell. Lured
in by the painted covers of the Virago reissues, I read a couple of Thirkells
this summer and this was my favourite. It’s camp, silly old nonsense from a
long-distant age and it’s really lovely. Unlike many of the books that people
go on about being hilarious, I actually found the warm wit of these characters
and Thirkell’s voice much more entertaining. They’re wry, I suppose, and they
all benefit for that much under-appreciated virtue of characters continuing,
seemingly with no effort, to stay in character and behave exactly like
themselves. I’ll be reading more of Thirkell, I can tell. Plus, I found a slim
bunch of them in orange Penguin livery, hidden away at the back of my favourite
bookshop in Paris (the San Francisco Bookshop, off Saint Germain…)

MY LIFE IN FRANCE by Julia Child. And,
speaking of France – here she comes. Six foot eight with hands the size of pie
plates and an accent that would strip the skin off a clove of garlic. I adored
this memoir. I took two whole weeks to read it, loving it even more – I think –
than the Nora Ephron movie. Julie was a force of nature – vibrant and slightly
dotty and whipping up a storm wherever she went during her heyday. I actually
find French cooking a bit heavy and cloying and heartburny, but when she talks
about it here she can make you drool. It’s also a portrait of a seemingly
wonderful partnership between Julia and her husband. They racketed about the
continents for decades, always determined to whoop it up. What a lovely record
to have left behind.

MAYBE THE MOON by Armistead Maupin. I
reread it maybe every five years. This time it was even more wonderful, for
being read slowly on long, lazy days. It’s a book about the entertainment
industry, prejudice, so-called disability, race and gender and sexuality and
all of that. But it’s mostly about friendship and those people who value
friendship and loyalty more than others. That’s what came out of this book this
time. That, and a clearer sense than ever that this is still my favourite novel
I’ve ever read. Cadence Roth is just a fucking scream. The beloved gang from
the same author’s Tales of the City seem like a bunch of uptight bourgeois ninnies
next to her.

WONDERSTRUCK by Brian Selznick. Something
I’d never have read without book blogs and libraries. Elizabeth Lefebrve wrote
very enticingly about Selznick’s illustrated novels just last week and then,
wandering into Manchester Central Library on Friday, I found this huge volume –
his previous novel. It’s a lavish book, half drawn in dark crosshatching and
charcoal and half text – the two different levels of narration set fifty years
apart pulling pleasingly in the same direction, running on parallels, crossing
over and eventually converging in a flurry of revelations and happy endings.
Beautiful imagery: wolves in snow,
dinosaurs and meteorites in a museum at night, the facts of our lives assembled
like curios in a cabinet of wonders. At six-hundred odd pages it seemed a
little long at first – but of course it’s judged extremely nicely to fit inside
a long Sunday spent reading. Which is what I did yesterday, on what must be one
of the loveliest, warmest Sundays of the year.

So, that’s the lot. Two Cosy Mysteries, Two
Young Adults, one memoir, one reread, seven writers new to me, one fantasy,
three comic novels… Quite a good mixture.

I’ve gone on much too long.

I’m planning my reading for the second half
of October. I want to do the Hallowe’en reading thing properly this year. I’m
making plans and I’ll tell you about them soon.

Thursday, 24 September 2015

Oh dear, it's being a tricky time in all sorts of ways! Poor Bernard Socks has been ill, and has had to undergo a big and rather serious operation at Mr Joe's the hairdresser / vet's. He's recovering with a line of rather fine stitches on his belly right now, and as we wait for his various test results, he is being confined to barracks... Which means that I'm confined with him, working on my writing and drawings in the bedroom.

Socks is crazy to get outside and run about the garden and all around the other gardens of our street. He loves clambering on the roof of the Beach House and next door's garage, and bombing about the place doing his usual routines. Autumn is especially interesting, of course, and I guess he feels like he's missing it all, to judge by the way he's yelling at us both to be let out. But it's no good. Inside he must stay until we're told otherwise by Mr Joe!

It's a tricky time too, because my literary agent has decided she doesn't want to represent my books. She's a newish agent, who I was passed onto when my real agent started a new job in a different area. The new one thinks she'd find me a difficult sell due to my quirkiness and originality. I'd always rather hoped both those things were two of my selling points..! But here I go, anyway - starting from square one again. It's twenty years since I was first a professional, published author, and almost exactly twenty years since my first novel came out. It feels a bit of a shame to be back looking for an agent again, but you've just got to carry on hoping for the best and getting on with your work.

If there's anything I've learned in the past twenty years of hard slog - it's that. Keep going and keep at it. And don't let calamities and disasters and other people put you off...

First, though, we have to get Socks better and back to full health. And, all around us, all the while, the men are rebuilding and redecorating various bits of our house. (It's a long story, going back exactly two years, all to do with ceilings in our house brought down smashing about our ears...) So there's lots of banging and crashing and raised voices - and more reasons for Socks to be kept here in this sunny oasis of the bedroom.

These are my most recent drawings. I've gone completely cartoonized this week..! Here I am, both writing and drawing in confined spaces, all with the help of the wonderful and remarkable Bernard Socks.

My biggest book recommendation of the moment is Julia Child's 'My Life in France', a memoir about cooking and going on the telly and bombing about the place having fun. I loved reading this so much I spent almost two weeks with it - which is unheard of, for me. I also loved rereading Natalie Goldberg's very inspirational book about drawing and painting, 'Living Colour.' Right now I'm returning to her most recent book about writing, 'The True Secret of Writing.' I know I've writing friends who think she's just a dipshit hippy, but I love her books anyway.

Thursday, 3 September 2015

“An extraterrestrial setting, alien characters, mind-bending
mysteries … rooted in classic children’s literature … Lora is a beautifully
realised protagonist: complex and convincing … These characters are swept up in
a story that gets more mysterious as it progresses. Almost anything could
be going on, and Magrs keeps us guessing with expert skill.”

The Telegraph – Best YA Books of 2015

“A vivid
extraterrestrial setting … this gripping sci-fi thriller is set on a futuristic
Mars … It's also a novel about alienation. But watch out for the Martian
flesh-eaters.”

The Independent – Best Summer Reads 2015.

“A
wonderfully written sci-fi adventure about a pioneer family on the desert
plains of the red planet … Completely irresistible.”

Wednesday, 2 September 2015

TUESDAY SEPT IST. Day One of 'Secrets of Mars.' It's consisted of rereading, reconstructing and breaking down the synopsis and taking oodles of notes on threads from the first book. Plus, help from Bernard Socks.

WEDNESDAY. Day 2 of 'Secrets of Mars' and that's the whole day spent rereading the first book and making masses more notes. And deciding on what the opening scenes of 'Secrets' will be. Bernard Socks still doing good helping.